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2014.03.24 - On which payroll you are...
It's midnight. Atop the Museum are shadows, shadows... and a moving shadow, darting in on the cellphone mast. Ducking into another shadow, the humanoid form pulls a screwdriver out of her backpack, carefully starting to undo the screws that hold the maintanance port closed and watertight. She's for sure not oart of the maintanance crew - those wear no grey polymer zentais. ---- It is purely by serendipity that Batman passes the Museum tonight. His pre-determined route had him patrolling Old Gotham, seeking to bring down a people-smuggling ring operating out of one of the old tenements there. A fleeing car brought him within blocks of the museum and now, with hours to spare before the sun rises, he reconfigures his route to take him over its rooftops. It is by such chance that he spots unusual movement atop the building. He slips into the shadows himself, the eyepieces of his cowl glowing as he switches to night vision and observes. Best to get an idea of the perpetrator before acting. ---- Whoever she is, she removes the cover carefully and then pulls out a little LED flashlight, illuminating the cables in it with the blueish light. half a minute passes in which the left hand searches for something in the entangled mass, eventually closing around the one with the wiretap on it and pulling it forth a bit to place the hand over the tap itself. The right hand searches for some other tool in the backpack, but instead of of pulling it out, the form just freezes for some moments, almost as if she has taken an electric shock. In the digital world however, those thirty seconds are filled with activity. Ashes opens the wiretaps storage directory and the one of the USB stick in her right, copying the files from the spy device onto the little tool. Folder and boxes flash over her mind, each representation a single call the tool copied into the little black box. Of all those only one was of interest really, but it was easier to grab all and sort them later... ---- Batman watches almost curiously. What exactly could someone be doing up here amidst all the wires? His brow furrows, running what he can see of her through recognition software and turning up nothing. He frowns, though when she freezes up as though electrocuted he springs into action. Criminal or no, he won't let her die under his watch. He moves swiftly, the speed and dexterity the man possesses almost unnatural for a man of his age and size. He doesn't lay his hand directly upon her, instead he draws from his belt a collapsible polymer baton and extends it with a flick of his wrist. He holds it out, planting it between her shoulder blades and seeking to push her bodily away from the wires. ---- Oddly enough, there is not electricity flowing through the polymer clad body - the sudden stiffness of her, the jerking movement as she entered the digital realm on her own was more or less a safety feature. The push to the back shifts the hand which holds the data stick fast, moving it enough to allow the Batman a gaze into the backpack. A computer, electronic tools and wires filled it, all held tightly in their places, just as the tonfas on the sides of it. And then movement returns to the woman, the hand in the box releasing the tap, the right hand pulling forward to examine the storage device in it. The small flashlight illuminates the scene ghastly, and remembering that she entered her trance with the hand in her backpack, she spins around, pulling free the left tonfa in the movement. The fricking Batman. ---- Batman does not pause, moving with Ashes as she suddenly springs back to life and turns towards him with the tonfa. He lifts his own baton to crack it down upon her wrist, not hard enough to cause lasting damage but enough to theoretically shock her into dropping the weapon. Disarm then question. ---- The wrist might be a perfect target for someone who wields any weapon, but it is also exactly where a tonfa held correctly shields the arm with a turn of the hand. Polymer strikes on metal plated black epoxy, resonating in both weapons but not forcing the woman to drop the weapon. Instead she tosses the data storage from the right into the backpack, trying to pull it tight while the short break lasts, the left arm held defensively. "Is it René or Sir Stephan I see there? No, batons are not their style, you must be" A second she pauses in the speech, and then she concludes "Severin von Kusiemski." ---- The Dark Knight presses the attack, swinging the baton overhand as though to strike down at Ashes' wrist once more. But then he twists it, swooping beneath her wrist to draw her hand up with the aim of opening her midsection to a boot. Not hard, more to push her away and give himself distance with which to operate. "What are you doing?" he demands, his voice rasping and cold and stone. Meanwhile, his mind runs the names through the vast repository of knowledge in his head. The name finally rings a bell, though it is an old one unrung since an unconventional literature studies semester at Cambridge. Great. The last thing he needs is a new criminal in Gotham with a penchant for BDSM literature. ---- The moment the right hand of Ashes had closed the backpack enough to secure its contents, it slid down to free the second tonfa, just in time to bring it between the chest and the incoming boot, as she indeed had fallen for the feint and push upwards. The kinetic energy pushes back the body of her, and releasing stiffness form her waist it turns her into a barrel roll, pulling both nightsticks to her chest as she rolls over the back and pushes herself up from the feet. "Doesn't fit either. Kicking and slapping? At best that's a stereotype Uruk-hai." she responds, dusting off the tonfas’ metal plates with a swipe over the arm. "What I do? What do Hiroaki, Bobby Newmark and the plague have in common?" Longer distance, ideal for a staff, but she hadn't that with her. Instead, she struck with the left one to the ground, raising a small cloud of stones and dust with a twist of the wrist, hoping to produce enough cover to make a move into the hand to hand distance. ---- "Computer hacker," Batman answers, almost dismissively, "Got it." As the stones are flung into the air, the Dark Knight uses his free hand to sweep his cape in front of him. The weighted, scalloped points at the bottom whistle noisily through the air to potentially hold back an assault on his position. When the cape comes down, he already has clasped between his fingers a pair of batarangs. The small pieces of sharpened, blackened metal are flung through the air with precision - another effort to knock the weapons free. His own efforts to subdue her are hampered by his unwillingness to cause any lasting harm. Not until he knows who she is and what she's up to. ---- The good part about Batman pulling up his curtain to hide? Ashes gets closer fast. The bad side? She is close when the batarangs are thrown, hardly managing to deflect two of them with the sticks along her arms, the metal contacting drawing sparks. The third one however grazes the shoulder, easily cutting the thin polymer and drawing a thin wound, drawing a light wince from her. "Hey, I'm not O, I just know her." The wound was not deep enough to stop her at once but pissed her off enough to try to push an attack against the Bat. Putting both stick on voltage she strikes for the back of his knees simultaneously as she descends into a slide over the ground, hoping for him to fall after she passed. Not riskless, as she might end under the bat even if successful. ---- One of the benefits of facing off against a foe like the Electrocutioner is that it teaches you to insulate your suit against electrocution. He lifts himself into the air, one of the batons striking behind his right knee while the other passes harmlessly beneath him. He winces, the pain shooting up through his leg and causing him to bare his teeth. The electricity crackles and smolders against the fabric of his suit but does not reach his nerves. He had been going easy but now his ire is raised. Enough. He turns quickly to Ashes as she comes to a stop behind him, lifting one hand to clasp a baton with an insulated glove while the other arm attempts to snake its way around her neck. A choke hold. His uninjured leg darts forward to twist itself between hers, the aim to trip her up should she try to move. "Stop." ---- Ending up under the Batguy with her back pressed to the floor was not what Ashes had planned, and getting strangled and in a choke hold was neither. Trying to move her arms, the weight of said muscular hero prevented her to move them too much and definitely not enough to try to get to the neck or strike into the kidneys. "Let me guess, you want to know my safeword?" Trying to get a good breath she coughed out the next "Call Oracle." ---- Batman does not let up, leaving just enough space for air to get through so he doesn't end up knocking Ashes unconscious. He tightens his grip when she mentions Oracle, growling into her ear. "No more riddles. No more references. Who are you? What are you doing here? Speak. Now." He tightens his grip as though to emphasize his point. On the other hand he wordlessly connects his HUD to Oracle's database and begins to search. ---- Choking on the grip, Ashes shakes the head as much as she can. "Just... call... her..." she comments, knowing too well that the continuing degradation of information about her real person and the scarse info Oracle has about her hacker-self would not be too big. Possibly a few notes about her being a hacker and a note she had done some work for some JR. Waiting for a moment to inhale deeper, she added a line "And give me the chance to plant my evidence on the desk of Agent Mulder of the ATF." ---- There's enough there, at least. Enough information to prove that Oracle has some sort of affiliation with this person. The name is not one he expects most people to know but Batman is a paranoid man and he's not about to let her go simply based on that. The HUD flashes the few scraps of information from Oracle's database. Informing him. He immediately lets go, pressing his shoulder into her back to push her away from him. Not enough to knock her over but enough to put distance between them. He'll have questions for Oracle, no doubt. But the file is enough. He trusts Barbara. One of the few people. "Hnh." He offers no apology for the attack. No warning against whatever infringement he saw her as performing. Instead he turns, drawing his cape about himself and stalking towards the edge of the rooftop. ---- Jane chokes and inhales deeper as the Bat relieves her and runs... That might give problems. Getting together her tonfas slowly she glared a the vanishing shape, before she resumed to close the maintanance hatch. Hell, she just wanted to get some arms dealer out of the way by planting the evidence right on the desk of the responsible ATF agents. In multiple duplicates. Just need to get in there... Category:Log